Tag Archives: Tunes!

Okay, I’m a bit late to the party, but this is pretty sweet. How many of that bad boys haven’t you plugged two bits into? They’re on tour, the bizarre thing is the order of cities. They are all over the map. Must’ve been the original Pacman algorithm.

Sweet! My buddy M@ hooked me up with a ticket to GnR Monday.Â Being one of my favorite all-time bands, I was stoked.Â Honestly I wasn’t that excited about the opener, Sebastian Bach (Skid Row), who I’d seen open for GnR some 16 years ago.Â I’ve always considered Skid Row to be wussy rock, a sort of precursor to Incubus (who should’ve stuck with the funky stuff they put out early).

We slammed down my flask of whiskey in the parking lot, then headed in (box seats, not GA).Â I predict: “First song- Welcome to the Jungle.”Â Jen, the nice lady bringing the beers warned us promptly…”Axl’s not coming on till midnite.Â Maybe 11:30.”Â That’s still nearly 5 hours away.Â We order beers.Â The Suicide Girls (surprisingly clean-cut and nontatooed) came out and did a pretty sweet set of routines.Â Some Reservoir Dogs, stewardess dances, chocolate, all sorts of stuff.Â Pretty entertaining, I busted out the below-seat binoculars.

To leave Jen to better things, we started ordering beers 2×2.

After the Suicide Girls, we got a nice set from Helmet.Â Helmet!Â They’re awesome, I didn’t know Helmet would be there!Â woohoo, things were looking up.Â They could’ve cranked the volume quite a bit more, but they were the opening band.

2×2, yeah.Â Happy Monday!

Okay. Â Sebastian Bach friggin rocked.Â He played a kickass set, a mix of old and new.Â He made it feel like the audience was there to see him.Â His new stuff shredded, the old stuff was tame by comparison.Â He belted it out, and his musicians were good and loud.Â They had fun.Â I rocked out.

Last call.Â 2×3 delivered in the 6-pack.Â My most expensive 6-pack ever.Â Like a QuickieMart in Antarctica expensive.Â But holy crap it tasted good, my blood was flowing, and it got us through the show.

GnR came on.Â Â Welcome to the Jungle.Â sweet!Â Nice riff.Â The new band sounded great.Â Axl did not sound great.Â He was flat.Â His voice virbrated like a reed a times.Â It’s the end of a hard tour.Â Singing like that, man, he has some energy, but he couldn’t carry it.Â Not this far.Â But the band sounded great, they added their own twists to the songs, not stealing riff after riff, but with the same flavor.

Being in a box, there were other folks in it, something I’m mindful of.Â But when you’re rockin you’re rockin and that means you’re not sitting.Â So I stood in the corner and banged my head till my neck hurt and banged some more.Â Guy behind me suggested that I sit, so others can see.Â Not angry, but pleading: “It’s f*%king Welcome to the Jungle man you hafta rock!” and I continued to rock.Â I sat when I didn’t need to rock.

Song of the night: Rocket Queen.Â Sweet variation musically, and Axl hit this one really well.

Downer: It’s So Easy.Â Just didn’t have the f*$k you sound to it just trying to get through it.Â This is when I sat down.Â I did stand up again, stand up, sit down.Â Whatever.Â It was fun.Â I’m not an asshole usually, but I gotta rock.

Alright cave-dwellers, time to explore beerdrinking venues for the merit of their tunes rather than their ales.Â And lagers if that’s what you’re into.Â The Musicfest NW is going on, and there are a lot of great acts to see.Â Last night the Black Keys rocked.Â That’s the only show I saw, getting a late start and opting out of the Dandy Warhols.Â Tonite, there are so many bands conflicting that I am a bit conflicted myself.Â Perhaps I’ll kick it off at Berbati’s at 9 with the Woggles, then either stay there for the Mooney Suzuki of head up to Fez for The Upside Down, who don’t seem to get enough credit around here…they are an extremely talented local band.Â Of course, that’s if I don’t end up at the Crystal watching Viva Voce.Â After my 10pm conundrum, there’s the question of 11—Stephen Malkmus or the High Violets?Â I don’t know anything about any of the other bands, so que sera there.Â And then at midnite I think I’ll drink a beer and catch the Silver Jews.Â Or if I need a bit of twang on, Power of Country is tight.Â But maybe Supernaut or Ditchliquor since at 1am I’m thinking of cruising over to Kelly’s Olympian for the ridiculously rockin Starantula.
Goddammit this wristband is throwing me for a loop.

so the Alberta Public House isn’t new. Not like the Concordia. It also doesn’t have the beer selection of the Concordia. But I still like the place. It’s totally chill, a geographical mess (on the inside), and full of pigs. The pink cartoon kind. They have some fun music, a good patio, and pretty alright food. Their happy hour (OLCC, can I say that?) last until 8pm on weekdays, which means that even after driving back in from the ‘tron I can still have time to get my happy swerve on for a discount.

The Alberta Public House has been a regular stop for the Cocks in the Henhouse lately, and that’s not a bad thing because they’re a pretty fun show, I’ve now caught them at Amnesia, Alberta PH, and some party full of med students that my buddy made a crapload of hotwings at (inspired by the ones from FotM the day before, but totally different, and friggin grubbin).

The Alberta PH has a good mix of beers on tap, not the downtown standards. The people there are quite friendly, and that lends to its nice, chill atmosphere. Another nice thing about it is that you don’t have to listen to the music. The building is solidly divided into two sides, in fact…here’s a tip—want a beer or the can upon entering? Go left. The patio is covered, and ultrabright heat lamps can be utilized as well. The Alberta Public House is at 1036 NE Alberta Street in Portland, OR. Definitely worth checking out. Oh, and they have a decent selection of whiskies as well as other liquors for a-mixin.

It’s here. It’s probably been here for awhile. But now you can look up you favorite bands, get their discography, and link to official and fansites. Check out the Encyclopaedia Metallum. I looked up Lacuna Coil immediately. Next I think I’ll check out Tesla, just to see if they count, and then maybe onto a few of the other great hard bands. thx albatross, and have a great long weekend!

We at beerdrinker.org work hard to stay on the high road of good taste. Last night’s show at Dante’s is clear evidence of that. From songs about drugs to ladies playing (rockin’) guitar in their underwear to not-so-tragic references to recent tragedies to deep-throating light beer bottles while playing rockin guitar, this show was beautifully highbrow.Nashville Pussy kick ass. Their guitar smacks of ACDC, with a southern twist and apathy and mean-spiritedness thrown in, as well as sexy guitar and bassist. The music shreds, they are loose, hard, sloppy, and tight. They played a long set with some new tunes, but had most of the usual gimmicks that I’ve seen in the past (fourth time to see them).

I can’t say too much about the opening bands because I only saw the last two songs of The Weaklings. Actually I was quite impressed with what I heard, and next time I’ll leave the Shanghai Tunnel earlier to catch them. But, I was there to see Nashville Pussy and that’s what I did.

This was the most raucous crowd that I’ve seen at a Nashville Pussy show. This is the first time I’ve seen them headlne, which may have something to do with it. Previously, I saw them on the second stage at the KUFORock Fest back when it rocked., and opening for the The Reverend Horton Heat, who is also a damn good show.

As I love their music, and think their live show is super-fun, and this particular event really was awesome…I totally lost myself in the show for about an hour, fully engrossed…I have to say that seeing this band is extremely highly recommended. Of course if you are into gas station country, ACDC, southern-style thrash, or whatever the sound is called, you may fell a bit different, and I recommend using your own judgement. On a side note, I forced my buddy to join me and he enjoyed it quite a bit. He used phrases like sloppy and lewd to describe them, and felt overall that when he goes to shows llke that, prefers a bit more punk and a bit less trash. This from the guy who introduced me to Morrisey and The Legendary Pink Dots.

I became so fed up with the horrible situation of radio here that I actually took a significant step in alleviating my pain. I cut my ears off. Actually, I bought Sirius satellite radio. Sirius the second-to-market competitor to XM radio, which I don’t know much about, except that it has some commercials, is stightly cheaper (per month), and has one less satellite beaming down on us (two).

I am going to say right now that Sirius has put a damper on my learning the German language. As I am going through the Pimsleur cd series, and only listen on my communte, it’s in direct conflict with 60 commercial free music stations (and 40 other stations doing different things).

I absolutely love Sirius. If a song comes on that I don’t enjoy, all I have to do is change stations. Generally they’re playing something pretty good within one or two tries, and there’s never a commercial, and the DeeJay’s don’t babble on endlessly. In fact, if you ride with me, and I have a buck fifty in my pocket, I’ll happily switch it to the FM band to see if there’s music playing…if there is, I’ll give you my $1.50, if not, you only pay me $1. I came up with the little wager the other evening when I wanted to get the traffic report, and between the two stations I checked for ten minutes, I never heard music or a traffic report. Eventually I went back to the satellite because it was too late to matter.

Of course it’s not perfect yet, but they are trying. My biggest peeve is that the email addresses they give all seem to go to the same place, whether you email Customer Support, Comments, or a DeeJay. Also, they are hooked on a few bands. The hard rock station notoriously overplays The Foofighters and Bush. But less so than the equivalent stations in Portland. And there are a lot of stations with no equivalent on our FM band.

So, here’s the details. You need an antenna, a receiver, and a head. The antenna mounts on the top of the car or on the trunk and is pretty low profile. The receiver is installed somewhere in my car, and handles the smarts. The head is the piece that has display and tuning. In my case it’s built into the stereo (I have a Kenwood after some jerk broke into my car and stole everything). Cost is on the order of $150-$250 installed for the unit, then $13/month for service. 100 stations, no babbling DJ’s, no commercials (on their in-house stations, some of the talk and such have them). And purportedly cd quality noise. I don’t know, I’m not that clean in the ears.

It’s great. Get it. Send a message to the radio station conglomerates that we’re fed up. Find a new solution. Enjoy music again. Oh, and sorry about the title of this article.

The Catheters rock. Nedra pointed out their album at a listening booth at Tower Records when I was getting my stereo replaced after some jerk broke into my car and stole pretty much the whole center console, along with the air bags. I only listened for a couple minutes before deciding to buy the album, as it rocked really hard. They have a bit of that rock-n-roll rhythm blended with some searing punk-rock vocals. I call the variety of music punk rock-n-roll for lack of a better term, and alternative ain’t it, DJ spunky.

The album is very melodic with quite a few nice hooks in the tunes. The show was less melodic, and more explosive, high intensity spit flying around singer writhing on the floor. Sadly, the portland audience was pretty passive, and only a few of us were even close to rockin not gawkin. The set was too short, I think that some of the pussycats were just beginning to turn around when the show ended. Like “oh! let’s rock!” and then the dudes left the stage and that was the end. They weren’t the headliners, so that was part of the problem there.

More later…I gotta go play ball!
Alright, played ball, got some new kitchen gadgets, went into work, had a coupla beers, and screwed around on the internet. Now have a few more things to say about The Catheters and their show. Yeah, the Portland crowd was slightly more energetic than the crew at The Viper Room when I went to see Wurkt (update your site if yer still together guys!) there. That was a dead crowd…I had five feet between the stage and the nodding crowd in which to rock out like some LA freakshow. I had a good time, and the beer wasn’t as overpriced as one might expect for a classy place like The Viper Room.

And back to The Catheters. They are sweet. The show was raw, the singer has charisma, but they played around and put on a show for us too. Twice the singer (Brian Standeford) slithered into the crowd…pretty cool, he came up right next to me both times…probably because most of the energy was there, and I was on just the other side of the groupie chicks, so if he didn’t stop where I was he’d have to just keep on going.

So it was a rockin good time, pretty entertaining when Brian tackled the dude up front, I ended up with dude’s hat, but gave it back cuz I didn’t much care for it. The crowd was a bit dull, but it’s portland, and there were small women riddled throughout the standard moshing area like cheese on popcorn, which makes it tough to get rockin, especially with a short set like they had. The sound was quite good, tight or loose when when necessary, contrasting their fabulous tight melodic thrash on Static Delusions and Stone-Still Days.

Catch their show if they come to your town again. In the meantime, I’ll wait for them to get a headline gig. They will. Rock off.

It truly does. Once again. In bold. Portland Radio Sucks. Bigtime. I could stop this story right here, and probably have said all that I need to, but then what would be the fun in that? I am just freakin’ so sick and tired of all the damn commercials and the stupid DJ’s mackin on strippers for 47 minutes out of each hour. And the three songs that I do hear…if my timing was good and I get to hear any on my commute…are the same ones by the same ‘artists’, rotating between Rage Against the Machine, tool, System of A Down, Korn (sorry deep guys can’t do that kewl ‘K’ thing they do), with maybe a bit of Metallica blended in.

I can’t imagine that it has anything to do with the way our stations take their annual turns at being a different national Radio conglomerate’s bitch all the friggin time. The air waves belong to the people NOT those ass-holes at Clear Channel and Viacom. We as citizens need to take interest in who has control of our media. But this isn’t the place or time for an intellectual and political discourse on the demerits of the FCC and deregulation. This is a time to whine and moan.
I have gotten into my car, driven for nearly 15 minutes and heard only freakin commercials on our local rock station. I’ve gone at least twenty minutes without a song. And these are music stations. Criminy! The alternative station, KNRK sometimes hints that it means well, It actually devotes time to local artists. For like an hour when even Taco Bell is closed! And Art’s show seems interesting sometimes. But that does not make it okay to suck the rest of the time. Their playlist is aye-dent-ti-kal to that of KUFO’s, the hard rock station (to be confused with the rock station at the same location on your flaccid tuner).

Portland is a city with a great music scene. There are a lot of good shows going on every night, album release parties weekly. And some of those are probably crap. But that’s okay. Seattle’s not too far away, nor is San Francisco, even Boisemight have an emerging band or two. I don’t know, because they’s rather not come here. If we demanded our music be taken seriously, we might be taken that way.

So I’m absolutely fed up with the situation as it is. I haven’t figured out my more drastic measures yet, but I’m sure I’ll figure something out and you’ll be the first to know about it. But in the meantime, I’ve ditched local radio all-to-friggin-gether and subscribed to Sirius Satellite Radio…expect a full review of that in a different voice than this, but suffice it to say for now that it’s so liberating it rocks.

Anyhow, I may as well make a few demands.

Vary your music a little!

Play less commercials

I don’t care how hot she is I can’t see her!

DJ’s: shut the hell up and play some music if you’re too stupid to have an original idea friggin Marconi!